Paris 2026: Marchand makes successful begin to particular person quest as Sjostrom and Curtis progress on day 5 at European Aquatics Championships

France’s swimming icon Leon Marchand started his pursuit of particular person honours in encouraging vogue on the European Aquatics Championships this morning.

Having dropped any breaststroke racing from his programme due to the hip adductor damage he’s nonetheless carrying, the 24-year-old four-time Paris 2024 champion obtained predictably huge help within the Olympic Aquatic Arena as he received his males’s 200m butterfly warmth in 1:55.90.

That made him fourth quickest qualifier for tonight’s semi-finals behind Italy’s Alberto Razzetti on 1:54,64, Spain’s Arbidel Gonzalez Alvarez on 1:55.07 and Krzysztof Chmielewski of Poland on 1:55.77.

Marchand has already demonstrated braveness and accomplishment at these Championships by risking himself within the males’s 4x200m freestyle and serving to to safe silver with a scorching opening cut up of 1:43.76.

Now he’s testing himself as soon as once more within the occasion the place he clocked an Olympic document of 1:52.21 to beat defending champion Kristof Milak within the French capital two years in the past.

World document holder Milak, who competed heroically final evening in incomes golds within the males’s 100m butterfly and males’s 4x100m freestyle, will not be contesting the lads’s 200m butterfly right here.

Sarah Sjostrom’s championship comeback continued in superb model this morning as she started her pursuit of a golden double.

The 32-year-old Swede, who returned to competitors in April having taken 20 months off following her 50m and 100m freestyle wins on the Paris 2024 Olympics – throughout which period she grew to become a mom – was second quickest qualifier for tonight’s girls’s 50m freestyle semi-finals in 24.21.

The qualifiers had been topped by 21-year-old Milou van Wijk, who clocked 24.13 in her warmth, ending forward of Dutch team-mate Marrit Steenbergen.

Steenbergen, who clocked the fourth quickest time of 24.34 within the subsequent door lane, was smiling broadly as each exited the pool.

But then she already has a lot to smile about, having taking gold and silver within the girls’s 100m freestyle and ladies’s 200m freestyle respectively, and relay gold and silver within the girls’s 4x100m freestyle and combined 4x100m freestyle respectively.

Entered for 5 particular person occasions, Steenbergen’s quest goes on. She needed to get a wriggle on with the intention to be prepared for the subsequent girls’s swimming heats within the 100m backstroke…

Sara Curtis touched house first in her 50m freestyle warmth – and for as soon as it wasn’t a world document.

The 19-year-old Italian, who had received 50m backstroke gold the evening earlier than after breaking the world mark for a second successive time, moved by way of third quickest within the 50m freestyle in 24.33.

Steenbergen’s 100m backstroke heats went nicely. She produced the joint quickest time of 59.66, one which was shared – to the good satisfaction of one other full home – by France’s Mary-Ambre Moluh, the ladies’s 50m backstroke silver medallist.

France’s girls’s 200m backstroke bronze medallist Pauline Mahieu was additionally cheered to the echo as she registered the third quickest time of 1:00.25.

Italy’s world champion Simone Cerasuolo topped heats qualifying within the males’s 50m breaststroke in 26.20 forward of his Italian team-mate Nicolo Martinenghi, winner of the lads’s 100m breaststroke title right here two years after claiming that honour within the Paris 2024 Games. Martinenghi clocked 26.65.

But there was disappointment for Great Britain’s a number of world and Olympic champion Adam Ramsay-Peaty, fifht within the males’s 100m breaststroke closing, as he did not progress, ending twentieth in 27.34.

Germany’s Paris 2024 10km open water swimming silver medallist Oliver Klemet and 19-year-old Johannes Liebmann, already males’s 800m freestyle champion right here, topped qualifying for what guarantees to be a monumental males’s 1500m closing tomorrow evening in 14:48.51 and 14:50.83.

That meant their team-mate Sven Schwarz, the previous European document holder within the 800m freestyle, couldn’t progress regardless of ending fifth in 14:52.16 as a result of two nations rule.

The house crowd rose to Sacha Velly as he certified third quickest in 14:51.49 forward of Hungary’s world brief course champion Zalan Sarkany on 14:52.94, with Ireland’s Paris 2024 1500m bronze medallist and 800m freestyle champion Daniel Wiffen sixth quickest on 14:52.29 adopted by Hungary’s a number of open water medallist David Betlehem on 14:57.96.

Israel’s defending champion Anastasia Gorbenko was quickest into tomorrow’s girls’s 200m particular person medley closing in 2:11.87 forward of Ireland’s 400m IM gold medallist Ellen Walshe on 2:12.12 and Britons Abbie Wood on 2:12.23 and 16-year-old 400m IM silver medallist Amalie Smith on 2:12.45.

Czechia topped the qualifying for tonight’s combined 4x100m freestyle closing in 3:23.41 from The Netherlands on 3:23.94 and Italy on 3:23.96.

Click right here for the occasion web page, which incorporates all begin lists and outcomes.

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Mike Rowbottom for European Aquatics